Marine Places
Huon Peninsula
For hundreds of thousands of years, the Huon Peninsula has been forced upward at a rate of about 10 in (25 cm) per century by movements of Earth’s crust at a tectonic plate boundary. This activity has pushed coastal coral reefs above the shoreline to form a series of terraced reefs on land. The oldest of these are hundreds of yards back from the coast. By studying them, scientists have learned much about changes in sea level and climate over the past 250,000 years.
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- Pacific Ocean West
- Type Primary coast
- Formation Uplift of fossil coral reefs as a result of tectonic plate movement
- Extent 50 miles (80 km)
- Location Eastern Papua New Guinea, north of Port Moresby
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